Apple offers Final Cut Pro, a video editing platform featuring optimized for a high performance machines and supporting a wide range of quality effects.
$299.99
per license
VideoScribe
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
British company Sparkol offers VideoScribe, a video editing application supporting whiteboard style animations and presentations.
It's an excellent tool, but maybe too complicated for novice video makers...so not 10. Apart from this, the one thing that could be improved ( and maybe I am a novice and cannot find how to do this!!) is creating videos with much smaller file sizes. Most of the videos in 720 are over 1 GB, and I have to use third-party software to reduce the size ( e.g., Handbrake). This is the one thing I would improve. The rest of the software is very well designed. I would love to know more easily how to use some of the tools, but my usage is very limited anyway. I do not have to buy an annual license, which is fantastic. It is expensive to start using, but there are no annual fees afterward. Perfect for my business.
If you need to spice up your presentations but don't have the money/budget/team for full video production or animation, this software is for you. In skilled hands it can also look as good if not better than productions that would cost 5-6x more, including turnaround time. I think the basics of video still apply here, you want to have a story, a narrative, some storyboarding and an idea of where you want to go, but the tools this software provides will help you achieve that (and edit it later) quickly and efficiently
It's fast and customizable! You can import your own vector graphics and PNGs to utilize or take advantage of their huge library of resources, from graphics to icons and sound
You don't have to have a background in animation or graphics (though it doesn't hurt) to utilize the program, really expanding who in your company can take advantage of it
The support and resource documentation is amazing. From multiple series of videos to text-based help and I believe if i remember correctly even emails when I first signed up, it's hard to feel frustrated or lost with how to start with all the support available
Some of the vector rendering for imported pieces could still use work, I've discovered a workaround for adding a stroke to images to help smooth the edge but this can be tiring
The PNG rendering often seems to be under a super heavy compression and can pixellate even higher-res images that are brought in. I utilize almost exclusively custom created graphics to use in this program so seeing that fixed would be great
It would be nice if there was a super-basic audio editor in the program, even something that didn't do much but let you edit the start and end of clips
Final Cut Pro is a great software package for editing, and obviously, good things require training to understand and comprehend what your are editing. I do not give a 10/10 because it would be easier to have a comprehensive manual inside the software, rather that researching or getting yourself trained.
Most of the support I need, I find online. While Apple has a Q/A section on their site, it's not always beneficial in answering the questions that I have. With that said, they regularly update the software, and when updates lead to crashes, they usually have another update not far behind.
Implementing Final Cut Pro into the organization was a smooth transition from what we didn't had. We felt we went from zero to hero with this software, due to all the great features that we learned. We took some time in training staff on how to use the software but at the end, this was very useful and important.
Premiere and Final Cut are very similar is usage. Final Cut has less crashing and lag, but does not work well with Adobe products. You'd basically have to use all different softwares to use it best. Davinci is a different beast with a color grading portion that is unmatched by any other product. Although DaVinci is non-linear editing, so you essentially have to unlearn everything you know from Final Cut and Premiere.
Every video or graphics program has its own purposes, VideoScribe is very specifically for taking images, moving them around with nice visual transitions and having something come together quickly. I've also used it to animate infographics in far less than half the time it would have taken me in Premiere. It definitely has serious limits in the type of animation you can do, which is important to be aware of, but if that works within the framework and scope of your budget, then it's incredible.
Remember - the only limits to how sophisticated you can make this look are how creative you are, to begin with. I did things with this program I don't think I'd seen in any of their samples, simply because I have a background in it all and had a new set of tools to play with.
Won over $300k+ in new biz by changing from an old PowerPoint deck to a short (4-5 min) video and reframing how we shared the information
Modified the same deck to be shown at annual conventions as a less "pitch" and more "informational" way of educating the audience, and never saw as many people visiting our booth for information. Likely could attribute additional new biz leads to this effort as well
Got to save a LOT of money in the time and production of the deck which was then able to be utilized instead on other things to make future decks better, like a new microphone and better monitors. Seriously I can't believe how inexpensive this program is
